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29.11.17

My social choice analysis of "voting paradoxes" in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries (Trump, Condorcet and Borda: Voting paradoxes in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries) has now been published in the European Journal of Political Economy. Here is the abstract:

"The organization of US presidential elections makes them potentially vulnerable to the “voting paradoxes” identified by social choice theorists but rarely documented in real-world elections. Using polling data from the 2016 Republican presidential primaries we identify two possible cases: Early in the pre-primary (2015) a cyclical majority may have existed in Republican voters’ preferences between Bush, Cruz and Walker. Furthermore, later polling data (January-March 2016) suggests that while Trump (who achieved less than 50% of the total Republican primary vote) was the Plurality Winner, he could have been beaten in pairwise contests by at least one other candidate and may have been the Condorcet Loser. The cases confirm the empirical relevance of the theoretical voting paradoxes and the importance of voting procedures."

6.11.16

Here a few days before the 2016 US presidential election I have updated my own little model (which I call "Bread & The Cost of Ruling") with the most recent data. My model--which I have developed over the last four elections and which is inspired by somewhat different, but also slightly similar, models by Douglas Hibbs, Michael Lewis-Beck, Ray Fair and Alan Abramowitz--relies on three elements for the explanation of the two-party vote share of the incumbent party's presidential candidate:

Economic growth: Developments in real disposable income since the previous midterm election (presumed to be positive for the candidate);

"The cost of ruling": A composite measure balancing a) the number of terms a party has held the presidency (presumed to be negative), but also considering b) whether the candidate is an incumbent (presumed to be positive);

Applying the model (through simple OLS-regression analysis) to data for the 16 presidential elections 1952-2012 we get this statistical model:

Constant: 40.22

Economic Growth: 1.95

Cost of Ruling: -1.52

Presidential approval: 0.12

The explanatory power of the three variables together is quite strong, explaining 87% of the variation in the two-party vote 1952-2012.

In particular, there is the familiar picture of economic conditions playing a large role--here the correlation between economic growth and incumbent party's share of two-party vote when controlling for other factors:

Plugging in the relevant data for 2016 (3.3 pct. average quarterly growth up to
and including 2Q of 2016, given that we do not yet know 3Q; 51.3%
approval rating for Obama, using RealClearPolitics.com's averages), we
get that the Democratic candidate for president (Hillary Clinton) should
get ... (drum roll) ... 49.99% of the two-party vote.

Essentially
this is as close to a coin toss as possible--although it should be noted that such a
use for "prediction" comes with a caveat: In this case the standard
error of the estimate (when applied to the 1948-2012 elections) is at
2.28%.

What this means is that the election--in the eyes of the model--should look so extremely close at the national level (disregarding the issue of the Electoral College votes) that we really cannot say who is going to win. In fact, we should not be surprised by a relatively narrow win in
the national vote (with, say, a 2 pct.point margin) for either of the
candidates.

2.11.16

It is frequently assumed--across the ideological spectrum--that the presence of the US Libertarian Party in US elections primarily hurts the Republican Party's candidates. In a new, little note, published as a working paper, I challenge this view with a simple empirical analysis of 196 published, non-partisan 3- or 4-way polls from the 2016 US Presidential Election (from March 23rd to October 26th 2016).

If the assumption of Johnson costing Trump votes was true, we should see a negative relationship between Johnson's vote shares and Donald Trump's (so that when Johnson does better in a poll, Trump does worse). However, we should also then expect a positive relationship between Johnson's vote shares and Hillary Clinton's lead against Trump (so what when Johnson does better in a poll, Clinton leads more).

Looking at the data, I do find support for the former hypothesis--thus suggesting that, yes, Johnson does take votes from Trump, although the association is relatively weak. That is really not surprising, as any "third" candidate is likely to take at least some votes from any of the two major party candidates. And indeed there is an equally visible negative relationship between Johnson's vote shares and Clinton's.

In other words, while Johnson does seem to cost Trump votes, he does the same for Clinton. Indeed, loking at the graphs and the relevant correlation coefficients the possible "impact" prima facie seems of comparable size.

However, and more importantly, I do not find support for the latter of the hypotheses above. There is *no* visible positive association between Johnson's support levels and Clinton's lead. In other words: Johnson's presence in the race does not hurt Trump more than it hurts Clinton.

In fact, there are indications (when controlling for time, etc.) that Johnson's level of support is negatively related to Clinton's lead--thus suggesting that he primarily has taken votes from her and thus indirectly benefited Trump.

22.6.16

Where to look for information on the UK referendum on EU on the 23rd of June? Don't look at individual polls--look at "polls of polls" (averages, weighted or not) or prediction markets (bookmakers, futures markets, etc.).

5.2.16

This is one of those "seasons" of the US political cycle, where I follow US opinion polls very closely, and I noticed a funny, little odd thing looking at some of the polls--specifically the RealClearPolitics.com polling averages (General Election head-to-head match-up polls & national party primary polls of Democrats and Republicans) and a single head-to-head match-up primary poll (with Cruz v. Trump and Rubio v. Trump, NBCNews/WSJ) not included in those averages.

On the day of the Iowa Caucus I wrote a hasty little research note on the topic, which you can download here.

But here is the gist of it, where > means "beats":

Clinton > Trump

Clinton > Sanders

Cruz > Clinton

Rubio > Clinton

Rubio > Sanders

Sanders > Cruz

Sanders > Trump

Trump > Cruz

Trump > Rubio

If that is correct (and we are disregarding the question of the confidence intervals of the polls), then we would seem to have three possible "cyclical majorities" (of a sort) involving all five leading contenders for the nomination of the two parties:

Sanders > Trump > Rubio > Sanders

Rubio > Clinton > Trump > Rubio

Cruz > Clinton > Sanders > Cruz

Not Marquis de Condorcet

This is, of course, somewhat speculative and quite counter-factual, given that it is based in different "constituencies" (so to speak). But it certainly suggests--as in the "Condorcet Paradox"--that no matter which of these five might win the US presidential election in November, there is a non-trivial possibility that that person could be beaten in a pairwise contest by at least one other candidate.

Barry Goldwater

"Politics [is] the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order."-- Barry Goldwater

Adam Smith

"Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things."-- Adam Smith, 1755

H.L. Mencken

"I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave."